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There's a huge spectrum of energy flowing thru the universe, that makes all things exist, from the entire expanding Universe, to holding revolving Galaxies together, to revolving solar systems to rotating planets, to revolving atoms, all things we know of are in it: sound- ultra sound to microwaves, X rays, Gamma rays, etc, color, light, electricity, magnetism , electro-magnetism, etc. The energy we call spiritual is part of that spectrum. The Japanese call it Ki the Chinese call it Ch'i. We just mostly call it a higher power( unless we use another cultures word).. Now, saying that a Deity MADE all this happen and controls all this and then certain things happened according to human writings- that's religion

Last edited by GeneC : 12-03-2008 at 09:51 AM.

Only between a single breath is Yin/Yang in harmony
Emotion is pure energy flowing feely thru the body-Dan Millman

The energy we call spiritual is part of that spectrum. The Japanese call it Ki the Chinese call it Ch'i.

Wow: Ki and ch'i have a lot in common. But the understandig of ki and ch'i is quite different in a lot of points. It isn't just a chinese or japanese word for the same thing.

Ki in japanese understanding has a lot to do with "intention", "will" or "feeling". Do you think, that this can be put together with X-rays, gravitation, magnetism or other "energies" described by natural sciences?

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We just mostly call it a higher power( unless we use another cultures word)..

What do you mean by "higher power"? If it's supernatural, it's a religious phenomenon. (By definition, I think.)
(But I don't think it's supernatural.)

Well, we may be splitting hairs, but if you replace "the" understanding with "your" understanding, it'd make more sense. Ki and Ch'i is the life force energy flowing thru the Universe and yes it is part of the spectrum, as is ALL energy.

Higher power? Any power outside of you and greater than your own.

Only between a single breath is Yin/Yang in harmony
Emotion is pure energy flowing feely thru the body-Dan Millman

Aw, personally I think that what the Japanese mean when they talk about in a martial sense isn't understandable by anyone who doesn't have a working knowledge of Japanses AND a working knowledge of the way a Japanese speaker thinks.

And personally I don't think Ki has anything to do with X-rays gamma rays, or gravitation. In the sense that Ki gets translated to what we say as energy, the closest it could be is kinetic energy or momentum.

But hey, however you think about it, its the results on the mat that count. I just hope I never run into somebody that shoots energy bolts out of their hands...Then I'll have a different appreciation of Ki....

Aw, personally I think that what the Japanese mean when they talk about in a martial sense isn't understandable by anyone who doesn't have a working knowledge of Japanses AND a working knowledge of the way a Japanese speaker thinks.

It is not THAT obscure. The modern usage of "ki" in the terms that Japanese martial arts presently refer to it, can be understood from Miura Baien's writings (18th cen.) where he developed the idea in terms quasi-physical, with relics of the mystical, that we are familiar with.

See here for his Genkiron which addresses "ki" at length. I have found it invaluable to understand a historical body of thought that underlies the modern Japanese usage of "ki" in physical contexts (it has many other and far wider connotative senses):http://books.google.com/books?id=ccJ...esult#PPA19,M1

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Don McConnell wrote:

... In the sense that Ki gets translated to what we say as energy, the closest it could be is kinetic energy or momentum.

Kinetic energy doesn't work physically in the ways the Chinese and Japanese use the term ki or qi. Momentum is the right idea. But with the clearly cyclical nature of ki, linear momentum also will not work, so that leaves angular momentum. Cyclic motion defined about an arbitrary center. It serves to describe motion easily in both absolute and relative terms, depending on one's choice of center from which to define the motion. Even electromagnetic and vibrational energy can be described in terms of angular momentum of oscillations. O sensei has a Doka that speaks directly to this: the "demon snake" and "the spirit of bees" -- low and high frequency oscillations, respectively.

For purpose of aikido the most fascinating attribute of this perspective on the problem is

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The conservation of angular momentum is used extensively in analyzing what is called central force motion. If the net force on some body is directed always toward some fixed point, the center, then there is no torque on the body with respect to the center, and so the angular momentum of the body about the center is constant.

The interpretation of 気 as energy, live-energy ... is a daoistic term. It has it's roots in that relegion or philosphy and can not be understood without that background.

In the aikido as taught to us the understanding of ki as intention is one very important aspect. In very short terms: ki = kokyu + intention.
That ist quite different from the understanding of ch'i in TCM or something like that.

It is not THAT obscure. The modern usage of "ki" in the terms that Japanese martial arts presently refer to it, can be understood from Miura Baien's writings (18th cen.) where he developed the idea in terms quasi-physical, with relics of the mystical, that we are familiar with.

See here for his Genkiron which addresses "ki" at length. I have found it invaluable to understand a historical body of thought that underlies the modern Japanese usage of "ki" in physical contexts (it has many other and far wider connotative senses):http://books.google.com/books?id=ccJ...esult#PPA19,M1

The Chinese - English dictionary translates 気
air, gas, steam, vapor; spirit
The interpretation of 気 as energy, live-energy ... is a daoistic term. It has it's roots in that relegion or philosphy and can not be understood without that background.

Well, I have the impression that the Chinese (maybe the Japanese, too) make some distinction between the simplified 気 and the traditional - for example, see Wakan dictionary.
Certainly, Daoists give deep and complex meanings to qi, but I doubt that they were the first to do so. I don't think that it can be called a Daoist term only. It would probably be more correct to link its emergence to the book of the Yellow Emperor, the classic on Chinese traditional medicine.

I was reading this thread and thinking about Gozo Shioda sensei's more down to earth definition which then turned up in another thread:

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In aikido we often use the word 'ki', or energy, but this word covers a variety of meanings. "Ki" as it is manifested in the performance of techniques is what we have when the components of correct posture, center line, breathing, the explosive power of focused energy, timing, etc., come together so that we reach the highest state of perfect balance. It might be said that 'ki' is the 'mastery of balance'.

To mangle another quote, sufficiently advanced technique is indistinguishable from magic.

Erik: Nice post. I'll look into that book. What I was getting at is that we in the west will inevitably lose something not only just because of the search for words in translation, but because the native concept as perceived in the person of whatever culture (japanese or chinese) is overlaid with cultural and historical inferences and experience that even a skilled translator may miss. But that's just what we have to deal with.

I appreciated the reference to angular momentum. In a western sense an appreciation of it is key as is our psychological and physical ability to intuit it as it changes in a technique.

But aw gee, since kinetic energy is integral to momentum they are related....(small perhaps obscure math joke.....)

I was reading this thread and thinking about Gozo Shioda sensei's more down to earth definition

Quote:

In aikido we often use the word 'ki', or energy, but this word covers a variety of meanings. "Ki" as it is manifested in the performance of techniques is what we have when the components of correct posture, center line, breathing, the explosive power of focused energy, timing, etc., come together so that we reach the highest state of perfect balance. It might be said that 'ki' is the 'mastery of balance'.

That's very near to how one of our main teachers speaks about ki:

Asked "Your choice is therefore to focus solely on the technique?" in an Interview, he answered:
"That is right because the technique will unlock the body! Once you have unlocked your body and removed all fears, the gesture will be fluid and this will allow more kokyu. If you add an intention to this kokyu, the Ki will naturally occur."

In the aikido as taught to us the understanding of ki as intention is one very important aspect. In very short terms: ki = kokyu + intention.
That ist quite different from the understanding of ch'i in TCM or something like that.

Carsten

Well, you put as an output here..
Is it possible to put as an input? or the process??

The interpretation of 気 as energy, live-energy ... is a daoistic term. It has it's roots in that relegion or philosphy and can not be understood without that background.

In the aikido as taught to us the understanding of ki as intention is one very important aspect. In very short terms: ki = kokyu + intention.That ist quite different from the understanding of ch'i in TCM or something like that.

Actually, there's not really any difference but it would take a bit of discussion to clear it up, so I'll just offer the opinion that qi in TCM is actually the same qi that is the foundation of strength (particularly jin/kokyu) and health.

Actually, there's not really any difference but it would take a bit of discussion to clear it up, so I'll just offer the opinion that qi in TCM is actually the same qi that is the foundation of strength (particularly jin/kokyu) and health.
FWIW

Experientially, I agree. I was exposed to the idea of "chi" earlier in life and coming to aikido never felt there was any difference between the "ki" I try to work with in aikido and the "chi" I try to work with when moving energy/changing blood flow patterns to relieve my migraine or when receiving acupuncture.

I wrote a book about life force ideas around the world, and found that they can be sorted into categories. One of those categories is air based life force ideas, such as qi, ki, prana, spirit, ruach, and so on.

These concepts have great similarities, so I dare say that they have more to do with common human traits and circumstances than with cultural differences.

I was exposed to the idea of "chi" earlier in life and coming to aikido never felt there was any difference between the "ki" I try to work with in aikido and the "chi" I try to work with when moving energy/changing blood flow patterns to relieve my migraine or when receiving acupuncture.

I think I know, what you mean. I'm doing shiatsu a little bit.
But in my experience it's not the same. In Aikido I use other facets of ki.

May I ask you which stile of Aikido you practice?

@ Mike:
In the "chinese understanding of ki", there are distinguished so many different types of ki, eachone having a name of its own.
I never experienced or read that concerning the "japanese understanding". Am I wrong?

How do you distinguish ki and kokyu e.g. when you breaht in through your feet and out through your eyes? What is ki, what is kokyu?

Are the aspects motivation, intention, mood, feelings also part of the "chinese understanding of qi"? I mean are they qi or follow they qi?

@ Harm-ony:
I don't think it's about input or output.
I think it's all about the flow of ki. We don't "generate" ki, but we can let it flow freely - or not.
In Ki-Aikido they have special Ki-exercises. We don't have them because we regard waza as such.
We only have kokyu exercises.

I wrote a book about life force ideas around the world, and found that they can be sorted into categories. One of those categories is air based life force ideas, such as qi, ki, prana, spirit, ruach, and so on.

These concepts have great similarities, so I dare say that they have more to do with common human traits and circumstances than with cultural differences.

Well I worked about the relationship of qi, ki and the christian "Holy Ghost" i.e. ruah, pneuma.
Because they are air based life force ideas as you call it, I assumed to find more similaryties then differences. Different terms, same concept I thought.

But I found I wasn't wright. You are wright: There are a lot similarities but, there are also some fundamental differences.

You can't seperate the understanding of ruah and pneuma from being the pneuma or ruah of god. Of him alone. This pneuma or ruah is send to his creation but it is not part it as ki/qi is:

Only god has ruah/pneuma. human beings / animals / trees have not. (Do we "have" ki?)
You can't direct ruah/pneuma as you can ki. You can't manage ruah/pneuma as you can ki in Shiatsu or Aikido.
You can't eat it or inhale it as you can ki.
You can't send it, as you can ki.

When God gives Adam live (Gen 2, 7) he "breathes into his nostris the breath of live" which to me is an equivalent of ki/qi the term ruah is not used in the hebrew text.

Dear Carsten, you can't be wrong, because this complex subject has no simple right or wrong :-)

About the biblical spirit, ruach, a lot can be said (and has been said, through more than 2000 years). For example:

In the Bible, there's not just one singular ruach definition. The book spans many centuries and many different sources.

Ruach being of God only can be interpreted as the life spirit being of divine nature, existing already at the creation of the world. This is actually a similarity to qi and ki ideas.
Ruach is something of God, but so is everything of his creation. The breath of God is what brings life to the world, much like qi or ki is an ever-present life energy.

You might not be able to direct ruach, but in the New Testament the apostles are filled with it (pneuma) in order to accomplish miracles and to speak the words of God. So, they are given it in order to be able to use it.

About Genesis 2:7, the term used is not ruach, but the "breath of life" is probably to be regarded as a synonym for it.

Well I worked about the relationship of qi, ki and the christian "Holy Ghost" i.e. ruah, pneuma. ...
You can't seperate the understanding of ruah and pneuma from being the pneuma or ruah of god. Of him alone. This pneuma or ruah is send to his creation but it is not part it as ki/qi is:

Only god has ruah/pneuma. human beings / animals / trees have not. (Do we "have" ki?)
You can't direct ruah/pneuma as you can ki. You can't manage ruah/pneuma as you can ki in Shiatsu or Aikido.
You can't eat it or inhale it as you can ki.
You can't send it, as you can ki.

When God gives Adam live (Gen 2, 7) he "breathes into his nostris the breath of live" which to me is an equivalent of ki/qi the term ruah is not used in the hebrew text.

Or - am I wrong?

Ki, considered in physical terms as angular momentum, is a quantity, albeit a relative quantity because it depends entirely on choice of center, (or point of observation, equivalent to a "frame of reference"). It is the closest you come in classical mechanics to truly relativistic observations of motion and position in space. (If you follow Bishop Berkeley you can treat it as an absolute by considering all motion in relation to the "heavens of the fixed stars" but this, as he said is a convention, not a reality independent of the observer choosing it. The role of the observer cannot be dismissed, even classically, just as we see also in the perverse problems of quantum mechanics.

Kokyu is an ordering principle of that quantity. The principle of ordering divides Ki into to two apparently complementary natures, positive/negative, left/right, soft/hard, male/female, water/fire, in/yo .. etc. The binary complement understanding of the ordering is the more common conception of kokyu, but is also, as with absolute position and motion, merely a conventional ordering of a fundamental quantity. It need not have plus-minus ordering, either. It may be considered cyclical progress about the center (polar notation, for the math geeks).

Even the binary complements are also defined by a center. They move together in proper order from one predominating to the other predominating in turn. Center is not a simple geometric concept. The natural center of the male/female ordering pair, for instance, is not some dilute mixture of the two, but a child, a new being, male or female in its own right -- a new branching of the stem in Baien's conception of the unitive/divisive/creative ordering of Ki. BAien's image is of the tree as it branches -- one, becoming two, and being many -- some apparent (branches) and some hidden (roots) -- all at the same time. The center of fire/water, likewise, is steam (the pictographic basis for the image of KI, BTW) - a new thing not immediately known from the divided natures of a complementary or opposed ordering pair.

If we similarly treat the center/periphery as an ordering pair, the center may yet move during this progression of the "other" around it (relative to what, you say -- I know I know, bear with me) Then the result is not a circle but a spiral. The center moves in relation to yet again "something else" -- even cyclical progression is inherently seen also to be a "trinary" not a merely binary relationship.

Moving into the metaphysical, the temptation has been to over-read the physical relativity into a free-for-all in choices of ordering -- which is also incorrect. Kokyu, properly understood, is the "right ordering" of Ki in a given circumstance. There is a "right shape" (this is starting to sound a bit like the Noble Path, isn't it?) That order is as perceptible in any situation as it is variable and adaptable to many different circumstances in which it is found.

Consider the ordering pair of left/right. I have left eye and a right eye. Without both I cannot perceive three dimensional shape from a distance. Moreover, with both I can "see through" an obstacle to either one of them; putting a finger in front of one eye or the other, my bilocated perception allows me to see the reality the obstacle would block if I limited myself to the one eye with the impairment.

Biblically, this allows a couple of observations. The Gospel speaks of "skandalon" -- obstacles or stumbling blocks, things that block the progress of perception of the truth of reality. Christ summarizes all the Law and the prophets into the two Great Commandments of God: Love God with all your heart, mind and soul. And the second "like unto it," Love your neighbor as yourself. Self /God. Self/Neighbor. Ordering pairs again -- themselves set in an ordering pair. If you read Baien, this is a very familiar nested ordering, very much like the branching tree image he uses, very fractal in the mathematical sense of self-reflective.

The point is not to acknowledge the self as center and the "other" as peripheral, but to liberate perception by rightly ordering it -- and seeing with both centers (plural) of perception, and, ultimately, with ALL centers of perception . Let each be fully realized as a center of perception in its own right. In cooperating, in loving one another, these independent centers, like our own eyes, identify with one another; our perception is radically expanded, obstacles are defeated, and reality is seen in its true form.

"Before pointing out the mote in your brother's eye -- take the beam out of your own eye." Jesus thus directly illustrates this nature of perception and perspective. The EXACT SAME mote in my own eye seems as a beam -- whereas in my brother's eye it seems merely a mote.

The two commandments are the lessons of the Biblical text; Jesus even orders them in ultimate and proximate terms. From our perspective, the Second is the first lesson -- and a means to the First. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. First, learn to identify oneself with the "other" -- in particular. Then second, from that practical experience and training -- steadily learn to identify with the "Other" Universally.

Aikido is profound training in doing this. "Love your enemy." Liberating the centering perceptions of my whole body I learn to feel my opponent's structure and dynamic as I feel my own, and move with him as water and fire move together in creating steam. This is ki-musubi. This is kokyu-ho.

@ Mike:
In the "chinese understanding of ki", there are distinguished so many different types of ki, eachone having a name of its own.
I never experienced or read that concerning the "japanese understanding". Am I wrong?

Well, there are different aspects of ki, but the basic, fundamental ki is the same in both Japanese and Chinese understanding. The original idea that strength, health, etc., is a function of something called "ki" or "qi" is the basis of the theory which is used in both China and Japan.

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How do you distinguish ki and kokyu e.g. when you breaht in through your feet and out through your eyes? What is ki, what is kokyu?

"Kokyu" more or less equates to the idea of "jin", for all practical purposes. It's the idea of a form of strength that is associated with the breath and breath-related training built around a trained physical strength-skill (jin). "Jin" is considered to be "the physical manifestation of qi". So when, for instance, Koichi Tohei demonstrates a ki test the ki test works because Tohei brings his ki to a certain area and when Uke pushes against Tohei in that spot, Tohei is difficult to move. I.e., there is no real difference between the ki/qi in Chinese theory and the physical skills you mentioned in Aikido. It's all the same thing.

Incidentally, it's probably clearer for some applications if you interpret the character for ki/qi as "air pressure" or "pressure" and you'll begin to see some of the relationships in "pressure", "kokyu", and so forth.

... And personally I don't think Ki has anything to do with X-rays gamma rays, or gravitation. In the sense that Ki gets translated to what we say as energy, the closest it could be is kinetic energy or momentum.

Didn't say it had anythng to do with other energies, just that it's in the same spectrum, but then this begs the questions: Can you create KI? Can you destroy it? or just channel (transfer) it? This is the definition of energy and ALL energies are in the Energy Spectrum, including kinetic and momentum( btw, gravity is electro-magnetic energy, the same energy that keeps us rotating and revolving around the Sun and keeps our atoms and molecules together). Do you deny it exists?

Last edited by GeneC : 12-10-2008 at 02:39 PM.

Only between a single breath is Yin/Yang in harmony
Emotion is pure energy flowing feely thru the body-Dan Millman

Didn't say it had anythng to do with other energies, just that it's in the same spectrum,

What "spectrum" is that? It's not the electromagnetic spectrum or it would be easy to measure. What you're saying is equivalent to giving credence to the Humours Theory from ancient times, talking about measuring them, and so on. It's a waste of time.

The Humours Theory was simply a wrong guess/explanation at how things worked. So is the ki/qi theory. Not that the phenomena they describe are non-existent; it's just that the way of explanation was a wrong guess that didn't pan out (you don't see scientists in Japan or China explaining things via "ki" do you?). The idea that ki is somehow measurable is a waste of time.

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but then this begs the questions: Can you create KI? Can you destroy it? or just channel (transfer) it? This is the definition of energy and ALL energies are in the Energy Spectrum, including kinetic and momentum( btw, gravity is electro-magnetic energy, the same energy that keeps us rotating and revolving around the Sun and keeps our atoms and molecules together). Do you deny it exists?

That was a classic example of setting up a strawman argument. I won't even get into your assertion that gravity is electro-magnetic energy.